Some fun facts from The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor” today:
It was on this day in 1868 that the typewriter was patented, by Christopher Sholes in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In 1873, he sold the patent to the Remington Arms Co., a famous gun maker, for $12,000. There had been typewriters before, but they weren’t very practical — it took longer to type a letter than to write it by hand. The first commercial typewriter based on Sholes’ design, a Remington Model 1, went on the market in 1874.
Ernest Hemingway, (books by this author) loved his Royal typewriter. He kept it in his bedroom so it would never be too far away, and he put it on top of a bookshelf and wrote standing up.
Hunter S. Thompson, (books by this author) wrote on a red IBM Selectric. One of his first jobs was as a copy boy for Time, and while he was supposed to be working, he used a typewriter and typed out, word for word, all of The Great Gatsby and A Farewell to Arms, in order to learn something about writing style.
Jack Kerouac, (books by this author) was fast at typing, and it frustrated him to have to change the paper so often. So he took long sheets of drawing paper, trimmed them to fit in the machine, and wrote all of On the Road that way. When he taped them together at the end, the manuscript was 120 feet long.
I’ve made a lot of dumb decisions in my life, but perhaps one of the smartest was to take Mr. Palomino’s typewriting course as a sophomore at Moreno Valley H.S. We learned on this brand new typewriter at the time: IBM Selectric. If I recall correctly, I got up to 85 words a minute on a timed test.
When I went to the U. of Virginia, I typed other students’ papers to make extra cash — at 50 cents per page. I had a Royal manual typewriter. Used that up to my second year at Yale when I got an electric typewriter.
My first computer was an Apple IIc. That’s what I typed the spec script K-9 on. Remember those 5 1/4 inch floppy discs? Had a dot matrix printer that was a slow as molasses. I’d hit print for a draft of the script, go out for a run, come back, and it would still be printing.
When I had an overall deal at Warner Bros., I got my hands on my first laptop. Thing weighed a ton and the screen was almost unviewable.
I can still type fast, something that comes in handy at work, teaching online, and of course here at GITS. And I’ve transitioned pretty well to texting on my Blackberry. But I’ve been convinced to move to an iPhone when my current phone contract is up in August. I’m sure my typing skills will take a hit, using my thick forefinger.
I guess what I want to say is, “Thank you, Mr. Palomino, for teaching me how to type!”
How about you? How’d you learn to type? What was your first typewriter / computer? And what does it feel like when you sense your creativity coursing through your fingers onto the keyboard, making words appear like magic in the screenplay you’re writing?
I first learned to type is a high school class, too. Also on those new IBM Selectrics. I was one of about five guys in a class of about thirty. Other than learning to type, what I really remember was that I got to sit next to Roxy – I don’t even remember her last name – but she had an obstacle to work around, or should I say two. Two very big obstacles on a very hot body. It didn’t stop her, though. She was the fasted typist in the class hitting something like 95 wpm. I have no idea what ever happened to her. I’ve only attended a couple of reunions and she wasn’t there. I left that class able to type at about 50 wpm, mostly because I try to spell correctly and that slows me down. For my graduation from HS, my grandmother gave me an electric Royal that went everywhere I did. I still have it.
The very first computer I ever got to use was a Cray at the National Security Agency. I wrote reports and translated documents, a very big and very, very, very expensive typewriter (at the time, there were only three operational in the world and the NSA had two).
I bought an Apple IIc as a lieutenant in the Army and had it until about ten years ago. Since then, I’ve had various desktop PCs and a couple of laptops.
As far as phones, I bought my first Palm in 1994. My last one died about a month ago and I replaced it with an iPhone. I haven’t regretted it once, despite my fat finger used for typing. A light touch is better and more accurate. I’m hoping someone comes out with some script formatting software, in the meantime I’m using Docs To Go – they’re still catching up to the Apple platform, but it won’t be long before there’s no difference from using a desktop (except for fat fingers).
I do recommend a free app The Movie Idea Generator. It’s basically a slot machine with three customizable columns – adjective, noun and adverbial phrase. At the very least, it’s great for passing time in staff meetings.
I took a typing class in high school. I took it from at teacher who was a woman, but the kind of husky type, that made thin she may be a faker, secretly packing a piece beneath the belt — if ya know what I'm sayin'.
My brother also took Miss Hanson (had to a miss no one would marry that thing, right?) Anyway, he got kicked out of her class for insisting his password was "SYSOP" which was miss dumb bitch's system password that gave my brother full access to her grades.
Just because someone works with computers NEVER assume they type worth a shit. My father was programmer for Boeing. Did it for like 20 years — hunting and pecking the whole time.
Now I'm a pretty fast typer, but I make a lot of typos, as you can probably tell from past post responces.
- E.C. Henry from Bonney Lake, WA
I was very fortunate to actually learn how to type in school, in 7-8th grade. It was non-electric old things and it was not very popular.
As I knew that typing could become handy I put effort in learning it although I never reached any speed with those old typewriters.
At home my parents bought me a computer to encourage my writer's dreams. It was before the PC-boom and the computer brand was not compatible with anything and had 3" discs that you actually had to take out and flip over to use both sides. The screen was monochrome with green text, no graphics, but that counted for all computers at the time.
It was a long time ago I sat by a real typewriter, but last time I did I understand that there is a great gap between a typewriter and a word processor although the keyboard is the same.
When I wrote I wrote first and did the thinking after. What I mean is, it was when I saw the written line that I decided if it was good enough or not. On a typewriter that meant Tipex or that chalk-paper. I am also a little too careless on the keys to get the right key all the time. It's no problem with a word processor.